Gnarls Barkley had enough after nine weeks at the top
‘CRAZY’ has the distinction of being the first single to top the UK charts purely on download sales.
As spring turned to summer in 2006, it spent nine weeks at number one, the longest run at the top of the UK chart for any single since Wet Wet Wet’s cover of the Troggs’ ‘Love Is All Around’ enjoyed a 15-week run at number one in 1994.
Back then, after some radio stations banned the song because listeners were fed up hearing it for so long, Wet Wet Wet decided to delete the record from sale. Twelve years later, Gnarls Barkley followed suit, announcing after nine weeks that ‘Crazy’ was being deleted so people would ‘remember the song fondly and not get sick of it’.
Two other singles have managed a nine-week stint at the top of the UK charts: Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘ Two Tribes’ and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
‘Crazy’ was the first single from Gnarls Barkley, the American duo comprising singer-songwriter CeeLo Green (Thomas Callaway) and DJ/producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton).
Inspired by film scores of Spaghetti Westerns, it samples and borrows parts of the melody from ‘Last Man Standing’, a song featured in the 1968 movie ‘Django, Prepare A Coffin’.
CeeLo Green recorded the vocals for ‘Crazy’ in just one take. It was leaked in late 2005 and already hugely popular by the time of its official release in March the following year. It propelled Gnarls Barkley to global superstardom and contributed to the success of the album ‘St. Elsewhere’ which debuted at No. 1 in the UK and sold over a million in the US.
‘Crazy’ won a Grammy for Best Urban/Alternative Performance and was also nominated for Record of the Year (losing out to Dixie Chicks’ ‘Not Ready to Make Nice’). It was ranked number one in Rolling Stone’s 100 Songs of the Decade (2000-2009) and number 100 in their ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’ list. In January 2011 it was confirmed that sales of the song had topped a million.
As well as topping the UK chart, ‘Crazy’ also reached number one in Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland a other countries. It did not make No. 1 in the US, spending seven consecutive weeks at number two behind Nelly Furtado’s ‘Promiscuous’ for four weeks and Fergie’s ‘London Bridge’ for the other three.